Insomnolents
by nikki.ntm
Summary: Future. Isa, a broken soldier caught in a small world, finds a stranded alien who fell off the moon on the day of the Dirge. Present. Lea has spent his life gathering machine parts to rebuild a machine of Old. Completing it was a pipe dream that turned into a nightmare. [Lea/Isa, Naminé/Xion, Terra/Aqua, Xemnas/Aqua & Lauriam/Elrena etc.]
1. The City

Dedicated to Lilo, my regal rascal. Rest in peace.

Beta Reader: Faulty Paragon at

Big thanks to the KH Rogue Nebula for keeping the Big Bang alive and to my Beta Reader for her hard work!

If you want to read this fic with the intended formatting, head on to AO3.

* * *

Mercy! thou dearest attribute of heav'n,

The attractive charm, the smile of Deity,

To whom the keys of Paradise are given—

Thy glance is love, thy brow benignity,

And bending o'er the world with tender eye,

Thy bright tears fall upon our hearts like dew,

And melting at the call of clemency,

We raise to God again our earth fix'd view,

And in our bosom glows the living fire anew.

\- "Prometheus" by James G. Percival

1

The City

Present

There was a fire sale at the Dream Store twice a year. Landscape packages mostly; open fields of rye, forests in the distance, sunsets on the beach and lots of flowers. Commentators on the website insisted there was something sinisterly Freudian about the dreams of bees pollinating flowers; they were certain the government was reaching into the minds of wounded soldiers to entice them into having babies and counter the dwindling population in the aftermath of an ugly civil war.

The notification for the sale activated a countdown. Isa sat huddled by his computer on a squeaky office chair. Wadding protruded from the edge of the seat, where he picked with his fingers. His picking had already created a hole in the seat; at this rate he'd be sitting on just the thin sheet of wood underneath come the end of the month.

Isa could either keep digging, chew on his fingers, or rub on his lucky ring. It lay in a red jewelry box he had stolen from his sister, a pink, transparent ring with a dome. Inside, on a small patch of lime-green grass, were two corn cobs looking up, waving and hugging, with wide grins on their cartoonish faces. It was, by all accounts, an odd ring to hold onto. Childish, yes - more garbage than anything else - but amongst his few worldly possessions, this was one of his most prized ones. Isa put it onto his ring finger where it was loose enough that he could turn it when he fiddled with it.

He watched the countdown's green numbers shift as he hummed on an old tune he didn't know the lyrics to. Four hours until noon. He went to the checkout with a cart full of landscape packages and the long-awaited update for _Hypnosis Voice_. Sum total: 2 500 gil. Download time: 4 minutes and 36 seconds.

Light barely cracked through the thick drapes hanging over the only window in his cluttered bedroom. The bed in the corner was no longer visible under layers of clothing he hadn't used since the war ended. The sturdy bookshelf by the door was lined with empty cans of corn, spinach and peas all except for one shelf reserved for a tub for the canisters he needed for his inhaler. Tucked in the corner next to the closet and by the window, was the desk with a refurbished stationary computer he'd gotten as a welcome home gift. Cables slithered everywhere, some connected, with others just lost in the tangle. In front of the window was his most prized possession: a Canon 5D Mark III on a homemade tripod, perfect for pictures of the moon.

To anyone from the outside world, this was a dump, so Isa kept his door locked to live in peace. Everything he needed was right here.

With four hours to go, he still had plenty of time for work. The tabs were open; obscure and cute blogs of fashionable young women leading lives of fantasy. They updated almost every day, telling an indifferent world about their accomplishments. There, Isa found pictures of gorgeous shoes, adorable skirts and dresses that had been chosen with great care. Each picture looked unique, not easily found on any search engine. Those were the pictures Isa saved and later uploaded to his own blog.

The theme had taken hours to get right. The colors had to be pastel, soft colors that threatened no one and were as cute as his profile picture; a round-faced girl, late teens, pale complexion, rosy cheeks, a bob cut, dark hair with the sheen of silk. Isa tried to run his fingers through the viper's nest that was his hair. He had a comb somewhere in his room. Probably in the mess of clothes.

He placed his slender fingers atop his keyboard and typed.

Went shopping today and got these shoes. Aren't they cute?

_Upload picture. Post._

The comments came within minutes. They thought he was her. She had no deformity, no branded skin visible to the world. The compliments poured in along with invitations to friendships, earnest and malicious alike. Isa made no distinction between either. Both began and ended the same, and all he was interested in was the admiration they wanted to lure him with.

**ItsAWave**

I love them! They're so hard to come by tho. Where did you find yours?

**noIX**

They're custom made :) Follow this link

**ItsAWave**

The page won't load. It just shows me the login page and won't work even after I log in

ItsAWave had commented regularly since a week ago. The comments were always nice and short. The bunny icon was a plus. A quick search revealed that they lived in the wealthy neighborhoods in the inner city where only the families allowed in the DTTH lived. With luck, it was a dumb teenager who was connected to the household's router.

Isa scrolled through the comments, leg shaking as he chewed on his forefinger. There were always cruel and crude comments. Those were the ones he should stop and interrogate, and he did, at the very end. He just had to sort the comments by best first. One bite for each like, and breakfast was fast approaching.

Someone knocked on his door. Isa froze.

"Isa?" said Aqua, his older sister. "I'm going out now. Do you need anything?"

Isa reached for his phone and texted: _Milk._

"Got it. Please eat today, okay?"

Aqua lingered for a moment, her shadow playing against the light at the bottom of the door. When she got no response, she walked away with a sigh. Not until ten seconds after the door in the hallway slammed shut did Isa make a move for his door.

Aqua had placed a tray with a variety of dishes right outside: rice, meat stew, mango curry, a salad of sugar peas and finely chopped red onion, and a slice of blueberry pie. Foods Isa had liked once upon a time. Isa took the salad and the hard rye bread by the stew before he closed and locked his door. Two locks, one chain.

Eating breakfast was a chore. Neither the rye bread or salad tasted of anything. It was nothing more than different textures moving around in his mouth as he chewed diligently. He didn't want to choke. Not today.

The clock was approaching noon. _Everyone to their battlestations, it's gone time_. Isa put his helmet on. It was a biker's helmet that had belonged to Terra long before he married Aqua. It was the closest Isa had to his army-issued helmet that he had lost, so he made do.

Isa flipped down the visor and pulled his curtains apart, one hand on the camera. Twice a year, as sure as the fire sale at the Dream Store, the army overtook the streets to the sound of the Dirge. People dispersed and disappeared into any building nearby. Anyone who failed to move was apprehended. For two hours, twice a year the city was as empty as the moon.

Three.

Two.

One.

A loud, overwhelming Dirge echoed throughout the City. The windows shook, and the ones closer to the river almost always shattered. The sound seemed to distort the buildings; it fractured the waves in the river. Dust rose with the tremors.

Isa panned the camera and pulled up his visor as soon as it was safe. The Wheel of Energy, also known as the DTTH, loomed in the distance, like a second sun. It had a shiny black surface, light barely noticeable on its nodes and three-part rays. The Wheel was anchored to a plateau made of constantly shifting square blocks that cracked blue on stormy days. Underneath the plateau was the grand reverted staircase that led nowhere. It was made of huge black blocks, each step the size of the city center. The Dirge originated from there.

Isa stared at it, tried to figure out where the Wheel began and where it ended as if he'd ever seen it parted in two. The rays seemed to sway in the wind like heat off the pavement. Its call always summoned monsters; it was always followed with death.

Many years ago, the Wheel had levitated over the City, loyal to its place by the Citadel and overlooking the Pillars of Existence which had been a massive waterfall by a crystal structure at the park. Isa loved that park where giants of the sea swam in deep aquariums where no human could reach them. An invasion had shattered the crystal structure and turned the old city center into a lake. The dirge of the dying giants had scared the Wheel away.

The Wheel began to wander until it was tethered to a round platform out by the river by a large structure with a finish similar to the Wheel. The platform was only accessible by two bridges; the new bridge littered with soldiers and the old Blue Ridge Bridge.

The sight of the second sun made Isa's scars ache, it revived the flames and the dull ache that made his whole face numb. Isa shuddered and forced himself to look away. He took pictures of the empty basketball court with the crooked basket and the birch roots protruding through the concrete; of the old plaza with the marble cherub fountain that had gone gray and brown in the elements, leftover rain turned to sludge inside the fountain; and of the old monument erected by the last King, an angel of Light striking down one of Darkness, spear piercing through the heart, foot against his throat for Darkness to grovel in its last moments. The last picture he needed was of the Blue Ridge Bridge.

Isa panned the camera again, and for a few seconds, all he saw was green forest. Bushes shook as if they were caught in a typhoon. Isa lingered. Something wasn't right. Judging by the coordinates, this was on a small island under Blue Ridge Bridge, Jurassica, known for the fossils of Microceratops.

Isa held his breath, expecting to see the face of a feathered dinosaur long thought extinct. The green became red, and then, a face, contorted in a deathly struggle for air.

A man's face. Hands gripped at the red tie hanging from a branch. Red like the flesh that had held soulmates together; red like the blood that colored the umbilical cord; red like blinding fury that incinerated everything.

Isa dropped the camera with a groan, hands clammy and shoulders stiff. His blue bangs clung to his moist forehead. At the first wheeze, Isa stumbled back into his room. A row of cans toppled over when Isa bumped into his bookshelf and water splashed from the tub with the canisters. All three of them floated horizontally, like ships in rough water when Isa dug his hand in frantically for one canister. He shook the inhaler, put it to his mouth and breathed as deep as he could. Two pumps was all it took for the potent gases to open up his airways and rid him of the wheezing.

Isa put his inhaler next to the tub. He looked at the spots of water around the cans that had fallen over, and decided that cleaning up that mess was a tomorrow-type of work.

The camera was heavy in his trembling hands as he positioned it back onto the tripod. The right coordinates were carved on the windowsill. They led to the toll gates on the Blue Ridge Bridge. No cameras were allowed within a radius of five miles in either direction. There were speculations as to why, but with these pictures, they'd know for sure.

Only five of the ten booths were manned, not with soldiers, but with entry-level policemen. Their condescending star badges could be seen from the moon. Isa moved the camera and saw the renovated layers of chain-linked fences with barbed wire at the end of the bridge. They had placed black boxes alongside the fence that seemed to emit heat or something else that distorted the air above them. Monsters pushed through there and became the splashed marks of crimson on the concrete, next to the bloated corpses of fallen novice cops.

As soon as the Dirge died, Isa pulled the curtains over his window and removed the helmet, his whole head damp with sweat. Three years ago a man had died in front of him. The details were foggy and warm and sticky like the flesh that had joined soulmates. He had decided then that the dying weren't for him. They always came to visit him in his sleep, during inopportune moments when he paused and let his mind drift, between uploading pictures of Hello Kitty bags that weren't his, and writing cutesy posts. It was the sole reason he was stationed here, and not at the frontlines, where men strapped themselves to bombs and colored their surroundings in red, pink and purple. The man dying on the island was an inopportune visitor.

The computer bleeped and he flinched. The Dream Store had added another offer, Pirate Island - four maps for only 5 000 gil. A steal, Isa thought, and added it to the cart.

Isa skipped lunch and dinner. He couldn't sit still, pacing instead of fighting the urge to pull his curtains open and look for the man that hung himself on Jurassica. Five thousand steps in, his pedometer beeped and celebrated with virtual confetti on its small screen. Pacing wasn't proper exercise. He stood on the intended spot for sports in the middle of the room, where he could move without bumping into anything. With back straight, tummy and buttocks tight, Isa jogged on the spot. He got 10 000 steps in before bedtime. His stomach growled at the change of routine. He would've needed the throw-up bucket, had he eaten. Knowing Aqua, she'd thrown the bucket away as soon as Isa had parted with it. It had been army-issued for all cadets. Isa had forgotten his helmet, but not the throw-up bucket.

The buzzing of the computer fan died out slowly when he turned it off. Isa could hear the TV in the living room - yet another segment of breaking news. The alarmed voice had nothing nice to tell; its purpose was to spread tragedy around and urge people to stay inside, because monsters would always find a way into the City.

Ten was bedtime. If he fell asleep any earlier than that, the Dream VR would shut down long before Terra left for work, and the dead loved to pay him a visit then.

Recommended use: max 4 hours per night.

Isa tapped his fingers against the black and slick side-pieces of the Dream VR. Four hours for a healthy sleeper, eight for those who preferred hypnosis over sleep, ten for those who wanted to sever the thin line between the realm of dream and waking. Surely, it was for those who made a habit out of it, not those who needed it once in a blue moon to escape demons.

The door outside in the hallway creaked open. Terra watched the news when Aqua went to bed. Impromptu visits were not commonplace, not with an unstable hermit in their midst. Isa approached his door slowly, heart pounding. The monsters were getting smarter, with so many years under their belt, they might have learned how to work an elevator and unlock doors.

"Terra!" said a raspy voice as amused as a drunkard at the height of inebriation. "I've got delivery."

Isa knew that voice. It belonged to Terra's coworker, a man with long, gray-streaked hair and one eye. Normally, he came around once a month, but with the approach of the Dirge, the frequency of visits had been on the rise.

Isa rested his hand on the door knob and held it up as if one lock was all there was between them.

"What happened?" Terra asked as he made his way from the living room. He dug his heels into the floor with annoyance that came to an abrupt halt. "Aqua!"

"Your hocus pocus is growing weaker."

"Shut up, Xigbar. Just tell me what happened." Terra shuffled away from Isa's door and into the hallway.

"She picked up where she left off by stealing credentials. The Wheel actually moved this time. It's been a while since it's taken any commands." Xigbar paced, his full brogue Oxford dress shoes made a tapping sound against the laminate floor like the flaps of old countdown clocks.

"Did she find anything?"

"She's found plenty and it's a problem. Intel says we've got monsters coming in from the east and there's only one way there are any openings there. So you either fucking fix her and do it properly or she's signed her own death warrant. We don't have room for any more fuck-ups." Xigbar punctuated each word like he'd said it countless times before.

"If she dies, we'll never find the missing Core."

"At the rate she's going, we'll all die before we find the missing Core. If I get the orders, I'll pop one right between her eyebrows. Nothing personal, friend. Just business."

The door slammed shut. Isa pressed his ear to the door hearing only the rustling of Terra moving, and then, the heavy steps down the corridor. At no point did he hear Aqua's voice.

Isa let go of the door knob. He had his hand on the chain, convinced he'd unlock his door one lock at a time to see where Terra was taking her. But his hand remained in place until he stepped back on wobbly knees. There were many reasons he wasn't at the frontlines, Cowardice was just one in a line of many.

Isa grabbed the Dream VR and shoved his closet door open. The closet was padded with pillows of memory foam duct taped together and glued to the walls. A small LED-screen tucked into the closet wall turned on at the signal of the VR once Isa switched it on and positioned himself in a bed of layers upon layers of bubble wrap. His pillow kept his head at a forty-five degree angle, perfect for the light of the LED-screen to crack through the small space between the VR-glasses and his cheeks. The headphones were heavy and covered the shell of his ears, drowning the sound of the news from the living room.

DREAMLIGHT INC.

The Dream of Your Dreams©

You have (10) new Dream Sequences installed.

The VR read his eye movements. Isa did nothing for the Gold Rye sequence to start. He stood out on a field of golden rye surrounded by a blurry forest in the distance that prattled in the soft breeze. Ahead were three grand oaks in separate circles of dirt: love, money and knowledge. Whatever the Dreamer chose next shaped the rest of the sequence. Isa lingered in the field, rye reaching up over his knees. Fifteen seconds in, the sky darkened from bright gold to a warm lager brew. Three lines lit up at his feet and parted to light up the way to the three oaks, but Isa kept waiting until the rye started to bleed corns of glittery light that levitated and disappeared.

"Safe mode," Isa said, and corn and rye became pixelated.

Five paces forward and ten paces right, where the space between the rye was wider and the edges of the pixelated light shone an ominous red, is where the IP-address was.

A touch and the sequence flickered. Isa closed his eyes with it, and once back online, he was no longer in safe mode. An array of IP-addresses filled the field of rye, each choosing one of the three oaks for sweet dreams. Then it flickered again.

Search initiated.

Searching…

Law Enforcement Activity (5)

Searching…

Local Environment Agency (2)

Search cancelled.

Connecting...

Isa shook his head and blinked in quick succession. The search window disappeared with a bloop. _Just a glitch. _The system was uncompromised and the IP-addresses intact. The mission was to find a way into the DTTH, and so far, there was only one person who'd reached out from the inner city with possible access to the Wheel: ItsAWave.

They'd given Isa their credentials through the phishing site he'd linked them to for the cute shoes. Isa walked forward through the dense vines of numbers in search for ItsAWave. With enough prodding and hacking, the system could last for two additional hours and he'd be able to upkeep his sacred routine.

ItsAWave chose the Tree of Love. Isa hooked himself to the IP-address with ease before the field of rye became blocks of electric blue that cascaded to the sides and revealed the waiting world behind the Tree of Love.

Skyscrapers rose as high and stood as closely as bamboo. Parade lights lit up the tiled streets. A live band played a jazzy tune on the plaza ahead, crowned with a marble cherub fountain, water trickling down to its sides in a lotus formation. Down the main street, between the tile and the flower beds, stood low and decorative metal containers holding burning coal, the flames low and an intense red. This was the inner city before the conflict.

ItsAWave took the shape of their avatar: a young woman in a woolly pink coat wrapped around her petite frame, dark skinny-jeans, sand-colored Uggs and a red knitted scarf around her neck, her thick blonde hair tucked inside. Each item cost a fortune and was only available through proper channels. Anyone who dared to infringe on copyright in Dream VR best not be attached to worldly things, for the price was steep.

"Happy New Year!" yelled a man in a fluffy bear suit. He stood surrounded by colorful balloons and a sign around his neck that said 'Free Hugs.'

Isa hurried after the avatar through the picturesque scene he had seen many times before. Usually the trigger happened by the fountain. A NPC masked as a customized Prince and/or Princess Charming swooped in with either a romantic pick-up line or stumbled in with pair of two left feet that always led to a once in a lifetime love story. It was good for beginners. Connoisseurs went for the bigger maps.

The avatar passed the trigger, steps brisk. She turned by the cotton candy kiosk, as if the map for the Tree of Love was infinite. Running up against a wall mid-dream was jarring enough, but Isa had no idea what it would do to a hop-on like himself. He ran to catch up with her.

"Hey! Wait!" he called and reached his hand out to grab her arm.

ItsAWave stood halfway through the line where the wall should be, frozen like a paused video. The jazzy tune glitched as if on a short A-B repeat loop.

"Shit…" Isa fidgeted. "Escape."

Search initiated.

Searching…

Law Enforcement Activity (5)

Searching…

Local Environment Agency (2)

Search cancelled.

Connecting…

When the search window closed again, the avatar was further down the road, walking with purpose until the short and narrow road became yet another plaza. Another glitch, surely. The jazzy tune was a beckoning to stay on the map he knew, but it had been a week since his last report and a hefty sum of income came with the pictures of the Blue Ridge Bridge. Enough to make up for his penchant for cute accessories.

The music died when Isa stepped over the boundaries of the map. No step he took made a sound. The corridor between the original map and the new one was a cut up image, copy and pasted and arranged to look like antiquated brick buildings on a narrow brick road, programmed with the stability of a newborn fawn.

Isa ran across the corridor. His foot snagged against uneven terrain and he tumbled into the new map; a plaza with tiled ground, colorful lighting, a cherub fountain, cotton candy and decorative metal containers with burning coal. It was all the same but later at night. The sky was covered in fireworks drawn with crayon.

Isa didn't move from where he sat on the tiles. The jazzy tunes were replaced with a melancholic acoustic guitar, a prominent bass and a slow beat.

"Where's the bear?" he found himself asking.

ItsAWave stood facing the fountain, arms across her chest as if embracing herself.

"I haven't drawn him yet," her voice was thick. "Do you know where you are?"

"In a dream. Your dream."

Majestic flowers - King Proteas - bloomed and died at her feet.

"We have a finite amount of tears," she said. "Pain is finite too. The worst of it is when you're poised in the middle of apathy and agony and you oscillate between the two like a pendulum that's gone awry."

"I don't - I don't know what you're talking about." Isa backed away as if her words would have less of an impact with distance between them. His heart skipped a beat.

"Finite amount of tears, finite pain, so why won't it stop?" She cried.

ItsAWave turned around and Isa flinched. Her face was round like a ball, shiny like varnished wood, face carved and filled with pastel colors, some of which spilled down her cheeks as she wept. She tilted the upper half of her face back to open her mouth until her jaw clicked like the button on a tape recorder. The voice wasn't hers, but belonged to the invisible band.

"_I started a joke, which started the whole world crying..._"

The fireworks screeched their way to the hand-drawn night sky and exploded in chopped frames, the smell of the smoke lingered and entwined with the cotton candy and the burning coal. Isa pursed his trembling lips. The cold air made his nose and throat ache until his eyes watered and he wept.

"_I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing…_"

"Stop," Isa sobbed. He struggled to stand up, legs as stable as that of a newborn fawn. The distance between them was small and overridden with crude programming, each error popped up in the shape of purple pansies. There were a dozen different things Isa could have done, but the song was sprouting roots in his bones, blooming and cascading like wisteria flowers in his head until he wept small, blue petals.

Isa sprinted. He tackled the avatar to the ground, and they fell soundlessly together, drowned out by the song. The wooden head didn't crack against the tiles no matter how many times Isa slammed the head against them. Breathless, chest bruised with sobs, nose stuffed with petals and tears, Isa grabbed each end of the red scarf.

"_'Till I finally died, which started the whole world living…_"

The scarf cut into the avatar's pale skin and turned it red, white and then purple. The body convulsed. Perfectly manicured nails dug into Isa's forearms, scratching and struggling until he bled. The song faded in and out like an old and worn out tape. Isa pulled the scarf tighter and bunched it around his hands. He didn't stop until he heard another click and the song stopped.

"Oh, if I'd only seen," Isa hummed and snivelled as he dropped his sore hands to his side, "that the joke was on me…"

None of this was real. Yet, the soft merino wool against his fingertips made his heartbeat thump in his gums and the rye bread became a ghost in the back of his throat. He lowered his gaze and it was just a glimpse. The red of the hair splayed against the tiles knocked the air out of him. The lifeless emerald green, the cracked pale lips and the crimson splattered upon them - Isa tumbled, tumbled and tumbled forward, never once hitting the ground.

The crackling of the bubble wrap popping in his grip startled Isa awake. He pulled off the VR, dry heaving as he grasped for the closet door and managed to pull it open in time to grab the bike helmet. He had nothing in his system, but bile, snot and tears splashed against the inside of the helmet anyway. Isa slid against the laminate flooring even with his knees and feet bare, toes digging in and trying to find anchorage against the violent heaving. By the time he was done, his spine felt like loosely stacked rocks held in place by God's grace.

Isa staggered across his bedroom for a box of napkins. He blew his nose and wiped his eyes, fixated on his window. The curtains were pulled open on only two occasions: at the Dirge and at full moon.

The sunrise colored his orange curtains bonfire.

The world outside didn't exist at this hour. It hadn't for the past three years. With the helmet out of commission and no visor to shield his eyes, he'd come out of this blind, or worse, he'd melt in the heat. Isa turned on his camera. The comforting sound of the lens focusing helped him breathe.

One swift move, and he had pulled the curtains aside. There was no time to lose. He knelt by his camera and searched the river for Jurassica. It stood in a sliver of light under the Blue Ridge Bridge in serene waters. On its sandy beach, round like a cove, stood the mess of red in a grey suit that was much too small. Isa smiled and chuckled nervously with relief and zoomed in closer to watch this stranger pace the beach with a stick in his hand.

Isa chewed on his thumb, fingers light on the shutter. _Click, click, click._ He'd only print one, he made himself promise, just to document the momentaneous despair on the stranger's face that looked so much like the one tormenting Isa.

"What are you doing?" Isa asked the stranger when he dragged the stick over the sand and then stomped along the lines he made.

H E L P

Isa mouthed the word written on the beach, each breath coming easier. Jurassica Island was 300 meters from the mainland, and the Liu River, though turbulous at times, reaped only its victims during floodings. He wouldn't even have to swim, just let the currents drift him back ashore if that's what he wanted, unless he couldn't cross running water.

"Dear diary," Isa said out loud as he took pictures, "I saw an alien today. He fell off the moon and almost strangled himself on his safety harness. But he's okay now and is trying to make contact. I think… I need more information-"

A knock.

"Isa?" said Aqua. "Do you need anything?"

Isa reached for his cellphone and texted: _I was sick._

"Can you put it outside to clean?" she sighed and tapped her fingers against the dresser. "I'll go wait in the kitchen."

The helmet stood by the closet. He could've snuck out later and washed it himself, but parts of the dream lingered, and they could only be shaken off in one way. Isa waited for the sound of the kitchen door closing before he went and picked up the helmet. He unlocked his door and left it where Aqua so lovingly left her tray of homemade breakfast and lunch every morning.

Isa sat down by the window, nursing his camera when Aqua banged on the door.

"Isa!" her voice cracked. "What the _fuck_ is this? Isa!"

He couldn't hear her rage because a song whose lyrics he didn't know had taken root in him, and from where he sat shielded behind curtains of wisteria flowers, he solely had eyes and ears for the only other castaway he had known.


	2. The Village

2

The Village

Present

Lea sat outside his tin shack on a wobbly plastic chair, holding a pair of binoculars firmly against his eyes like a pirate scouting for land. Today marked the third day Roxas hadn't come by. His absence came with insisting nausea that no Spam in the world could ease. The world was an ugly place, prone to rip kindhearted people away in merciless manners. Lea fought tooth and nail to keep Roxas off the world's radar.

Lea shook his leg impatiently, searching the road all the way to the Village. The outskirts were full of children scavenging for food in the mud. Lucky ones found a maggot or two. The ruthless ganged up on the lucky ones.

The Village was a shantytown north of the City, placed outside the City's high and grotesque walls. The Village was a thirty minute bike ride from Lea's tin shack. It lay out by the outskirts of the wastelands ironically called the Green Zone. The Village sat in a small crater prone to floods and stale puddles; a pot perfect for shit stew. Lea avoided it at all costs. He could count on one hand the times he'd gone there since the age of fifteen.

Doves and rats were scarce this time of year, and Roxas never ventured outside the Green Zone. Three days without a visit meant he had no food, or worse, he'd succumbed to the counts and lords offering feed as bait.

Lea thumbed on the edge of a tin can with Spam and pickled onion on his lap. It was the last of his latest bounty. The mere sight of the colorful blue banner against the white background with an image of greens and pickled onion and Spam was enough for Lea to salivate. He pulled a folded four-pack of jerky from his back pocket. He held it to his nose and inhaled deeply. The scent took the worst of the edge off.

Roxas hadn't come by for a reason. Lea ran through a whole list of them. Broken bones, kidnapping, starvation, food poisoning. All of them were better than what was most likely; sleepwalking in the desert. Roxas had been having vivid nightmares lately. Olette said she tied him to herself in case he wandered off into the night, Hayner slept by the door and Pence had found a string of bells to hang on the window. But Roxas had made it out, sleepwalking, his feet raw after a few hours in the harsh desert, lips purple with cold. Lea would have to make a detour to the Village before work to make sure Roxas hadn't wandered off into certain death.

Lea clicked his tongue at the binoculars that saw no further than the misery of the children searching for food.

He went to his workshop, a small, secret, thirteen-by-thirteen foot room stacked with stuff he'd found scavenging the high piles in the Yellow Zone. A chopped, medium-sized stump stood in the middle of the room, Lea's chair, and on the table of mismatched wood in front of the stump, was the invention that would immortalize him: the Metal Bird Grabber. The machine was a mess of cables and old parts in various colors, all shaped like a helmet. The only esthetically pleasing parts of it were the black and slick side-pieces. At the right height and with enough battery power it could get in drone footage which was particularly useful for ventures into the Yellow Zone.

Lea put it on.

A screen flickered before his eyes. If there were any Metal Birds near the Village, he might get their signal and steal their eyes. One soared above the Prison, south of the Village. Lea lingered on it. The silhouette of the Village became visible at the first turn. A miserable place unfit for humans. Lea chewed on his fingers. Roxas lived in the outskirts near the Wall.

"Where are you?" Lea mumbled, hoping for somebody to appear on the screen.

The Metal Bird turned again, loyal to its designated path, and with it came the faint sound of sirens.

Lea put the helmet away and turned it off. Sirens didn't have to mean anything. Normally, they wouldn't mean anything, not until Lea had decided to be a friend and share a secret. The secret. He had shown Roxas his workshop. The one that was full to the brim with stolen materials and resources, with his inventions, things that would have him killed should the police ever find out; chief among those things was a priceless mechanical doll.

The Village was full of ears and empty pockets, any one of Roxas' neighbors could've overheard him talking about Lea's findings. Any one of Roxas' friends could've decided that money was worth more than Roxas' friendship. It was known to happen. Lea had experienced it, and yet, on that day, he'd let his guard down, and shared his secret.

The sun tinted the sky orange when Lea pulled his bent blue bike out and checked the attached bags at the front and the back. The tin can of Spam went into the bag on the steering wheel, wrapped in a ragged hemp towel.

Autumn rain made roads muddy. The road downhill was rough and slippery. A sensible part of him told him to turn back and go to work instead. Radioactive scraps were preferable to the foul memories that lay buried in the mud, shit and piss of the Village. Roxas was reliable, a promise was a promise was a promise. But Lea had been down that road. Trust was a luxury item. Nothing a Scrapper could afford, especially not with the interest his findings would attract.

Lea's precious doll sat under a tarp in his workshop on a second trunk, hidden away in the darkest corner like a testament to committed sins: a metal doll without a face, without a Core. Lea had found a Core for it once many years ago, but it had been stolen, so the metal doll remained hidden, faceless and incomplete.

Any complete set or parts of the Old Technology were to be returned to Insomnia Group. Scrappers that did were handsomely rewarded, none more so than those who found Cores. Failure to cooperate with the Group was a certified death sentence.

The sirens were clear. They echoed from across the Village. Lea veered away from the children, fearful that they would catch the scent of the Spam. Their penetrating gaze, runny noses, and rags for clothes was like looking straight at his past self. They were orphans because nobody wanted them. Nobody had wanted him. The sight made him nauseous.

Lea gripped the handles of his bike until his knuckles shifted white. _I've grown into somebody_, he reminded himself, a Scrapper, and somebodies did not deal with nobodies, especially those prone to dying.

Lea pedaled faster and harder through the thickening mud, earning curses and swears from the villagers in his path. There were more tin shacks now than there had been back then, but other than that, everything was exactly the same: the plaza with the marketplace and child-sized cages and crates for valuables, the rusty building in front of it with the large misspelled sign that said ORFANAGE, and even the first mini-mart was the same, with old man Ben seated on a plastic stool, more duct tape than actual plastic, fiddling with the radio to catch the latest news from the City.

_Nobodies, the lot of them._

Roxas lived with Hayner, Pence and Olette in a small shack near the north main road. Olette braided straws of sunburnt grass and hung them on the door. A housewarming decoration that was also for sale at five gil each.

Lea searched for it as he struggled through the small alleyways. He saw the police cars first; mismatched old sedans with the rusted silver letters D SUN in the front. The cars were fit for four but the cops fit at least ten in each. Clown cars. As much nightmare-fuel as any other clown.

Lea froze.

"Search the area. The professor was seen around these parts before he went AWOL." The man giving the order wasn't a cop. He was dressed entirely in black, a fitted suit with shades to match. Cops wore dark blue jumpsuits patched to oblivion using the jumpsuits of deceased cops. The man in black, long dark hair streaked with gray, hadn't seen a patch in his life.

"Kids say they haven't seen 'im," said the man in a jumpsuit next to the other, his face a map of scars.

"So who do we believe, officer? Greedy brats who'd sell one another for a hot dog or the unbiased footage of the drones?"

"The, the drones, sir. Of course."

"Take the blond in for questioning."

"Not all of them?"

"Did I stutter?"

"Right away, sir!"

The order started the commotion inside. Lea pulled one foot from out of the mud. The intention to intervene was there. One foot in front of the other would get him there, but the last interaction with cops was much too fresh in his mind. The phantom pains in his recently healed shin anchored him to the ground. It had taken six months. Six long painful months; food scarce, water scarce, heat scarce.

"Let him go!" Olette yelled.

"Don't touch me, you spineless toad!" Roxas protested.

Five cops dragged a kicking-and-screaming Roxas out of the shack. Each step was a struggle because Hayner, Pence and Olette fought tooth and nail. The batons only seemed to encourage them to escalate. They bit where the patches on the jumpsuits were worn, scratched wherever they could reach. But the cops got Roxas into the car and left them in a cloud of dark smoke.

Lea stared wide-eyed. _Roxas is a somebody. Roxas is a somebody. Roxas is a somebody. He could've run after the car, grabbed onto something, anything, to get Roxas out of the cops' filthy grip. But he remained motionless until the sirens died out. _

Lea looked around and staggered back. No one was present to witness this slip of his true colors. If no one saw it, he didn't need to answer for it. He'd be more than glad to lie to himself. _Next time_, he thought. Next time he'd put himself between Roxas and whatever imminent danger they were faced with.

Lea dug for the wrapped tin can he'd brought with trembling hands. He left his bike in the mud to make the last few feet on foot. He rounded the shack, cautious of whatever could be watching from above when he climbed in through the back window, covered with black plastic bags and the bells on a string. The ground was a mess as if they'd turned every inch upside down. What little furniture they had was intact aside from a braided carpet Lea had gifted them. It was missing.

"What happened?" Lea asked when the three came back in.

"They took Roxas again," Olette said, eyeing Hayner.

"What for?" Lea wiped his nose with the back of his hand. It was going to be tough to get anything out of them. The older the kids got, the better the lies and the scheming became. Everything they said was calculated, the pros weighed against the cons, all of it translated to knowing glances to mark who was part of the group and who wasn't.

"Don't know," Pence shrugged. He lowered his head, pursing his lips

"Because of me?" Lea prodded.

"Uhm…" Olette began. She nudged Hayner discreetly, seemingly annoyed by his silence. "Maybe?"

"Hayner?" Lea turned to the oldest of the three. Hayner moved away from Olette and paced in circles, too quiet for someone always eager to get their two cents in.

"We haven't voted yet," Hayner said. "We - they, they came, and we didn't get to vote…"

"What's he talking about?" Lea took a deep breath to keep his hands from shaking. Any violent reaction would wreck what small trust he'd earned, but if they were anything like he'd been at that age, it would be enough to at least get them to speak some truth. "What's happening?"

"We should tell him," Olette said and pulled on her bangs as if that would keep her from speaking.

"Roxas said not to," Pence whispered. He panted and shook the front of his shirt for air.

"They're gonna bring the dogs… and when they do, we'll be made into Spam," Hayner told his friends.

"You're scaring me," Lea cut in. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. What if there wasn't a next time for Roxas?

"Do you get sick easily?" Olette asked.

"Just unearth the guy," Pence said. He rubbed his chubby face.

"Close the door," Hayner said at last, defeated.

Pence hurried to the latch.

All three dropped to their knees and began to dig like feral dogs. Under a good four feet of mud and gravel was a chest - half cardboard box, half compressed wood - full of nonsensical symbols. Lea hugged his wrapped tin can of Spam when he saw his house-warming gift, the carpet, sticking out from the sides.

The three made teamwork out of removing each layer inside the chest that would've been best left alone. Lea pressed one hand against his nose and mouth at the reveal of a hellish fiend. A corpse. The body was a mixture of purple and black. The eye sockets seemed hollow, cheek bones prominent when skin and bone were all there was. The mouth was shaped around a scream, hands clutching the face as if the mummification had been instant.

"What the fuck is that?" Lea stood leaning against the wall, hand still firmly in place over nose and mouth.

"A doctor from the City - from the vaccination group," Olette said mournfully. "He died this morning."

The brown-nosing doctors with their endless questions and never-ending needles to protect them from newly discovered diseases of which there were newer ones every year. With all their supposed help, people were still dying. Lea had tried to convince Roxas to maintain his distance, certain they weren't patients of these doctors, but their guinea pigs.

Lea made a face at the dimensions of the corpse.

"No fucking way. That's been dead and buried for-fucking-ever and it looks sick and contagious. Put it back under."

"Roxas did him in somehow," Pence said, sweating buckets. "The doctor's been visiting for a couple of days now. Said he needed blood samples to check our health. Before we knew it, it was like someone took a straw to him and sucked him clean out."

"H-how's - how's that Roxas' fault?" Lea sank to the ground. How many times had he asked - begged - Roxas not to let anyone from the City in? No good would come of it. On the few occasions Roxas bothered to counter Lea's request, he'd say they had all voted to let the kind doctor in. Majority rules.

"We don't know for sure that it is," Hayner said, exasperated. "He was testing Roxas when it happened. The screams must've alerted the neighbors, y'know, scared them shitless."

"Who was screaming? The guy?" Lea asked. "Maybe it's a set-up."

"Us! We were screaming!" Hayner pulled his hair at Lea's suggestion. "He just up and almost vanished right before our eyes. We're in so much shit right now. So. Much. He's a rich guy from the City, Lea. They're gonna clean us out. They already have Roxas." Hayner's voice quivered and he snivelled. "What are we gonna do?"

Lea pulled the rag from the tin can and breathed into it.

"This is for you by the way." Lea put the tin can down. "Spam. Made of offal as far as I know. Save some for Roxas."

"Roxas' in prison, Lea!" Olette said, flailing in frustration.

"I know! Alright? I know…" Lea began, "just, let me think for a second… I… look, I'll take him. The horror show you've got in the box there, I'll pack him up, toss him in the Yellow Zone. No one has to know. And then," Lea paused for breath, "then I'll get Roxas out. Easy. We've gotten him out before. We'll do it again. We just - first - we have to deal with that."

"How are you gonna get him out of the Village unseen?" Hayner asked.

"Crack him to pieces like rye bread," Lea said solemnly and approached the body.

"That could work," Olette agreed urgently.

"Let's get to it then," Pence said. "The dogs Hayner mentioned could be on their way right now."

The doctor was disturbingly easy to pull out of the box. He was hollow like a rotten trunk, fragile like a sheet of ice. He shattered like glass with one drop against solid ground. Hayner turned away first, heaving. Pence lingered for longer, but the frayed ends of the upper left arm were too much, and he stepped away, face white.

"Yeah, go away now that we race against time," Olette shook her head in disbelief as she gathered the pieces up like kindling.

"I have to pull my bike up back." Lea dusted off human remains from his hands against the legs of his pale green and padded jumpsuit. He had tied the sleeves around his waist to not sweat too much on his way over here; a futile effort now that he could feel the sweat stains in his armpits and on his back.

Olette had ripped the carpet to tie the body parts together in neat packages when Lea climbed back into the shack. She had purple dust all over her clothes, hands and lower arms. Lea pressed her hand down with one finger when she went to rub her forehead.

"Get cleaned. Don't breathe too much in here. Air this place out once I leave and... find water. There were some puddles up east, hell, even river water might be better than whatever this purple shit is. Just don't inhale it. Please."

Olette nodded slowly.

In pieces, the man fit in Lea's bags like a glove. The main road would have to do to avoid contaminating the whole Village with what the doctor had become, a purple husk easily made into a fine dust. For all the dirt and grime that existed in the Village, dust was uncommon, all thanks to the sandstorm that had blown in from the Yellow Zone after the Devil had left for the City. The lucky ones had died; others coughed their lungs to smithereens over time. Only those who had been wise enough to not be drawn in by the red hue of the storm and sought shelter inside were spared the hellish cough.

Well outside the Village, when the large piles of the Yellow Zone peaked from behind a sand dune, Lea pulled out his dosimeter and switched it on. He ran it over the remains.

If this instant mummification was a new type of outbreak, he'd have to inform everyone. The villages out west were abandoned after the Swollen Neck syndrome became prevalent in children. The City redrew the lines after that incident and made it only legal for Scrappers to rummage through the piles for materials wanted by the Insomnia Group. Meanwhile, the Green Zone had only grown smaller.

The dosimeter didn't react to the remains.

"Okay," Lea exhaled. At least it wasn't radioactive. "Let's hope you're a unique freak of nature, buddy."

Lea put his jumpsuit on properly and zipped it all the way up. From his breast pocket, he pulled out a makeshift mask and put it over his nose and mouth, adjusting the band for the mask to sit tight. He tied his hair into a neat double-folded ponytail and put a dark green cap over it. He pulled it all the way down over his ears. The gloves came on last.

Safety hadn't always been a priority. He'd walked these lands long before he knew why they were off-limits. The patrolling Metal Birds had been a challenge not a deterrent. The admission fee had proven, more than once, to be steep, but Lea had yet to pay for it with his health. He intended to keep it that way.

The dosimeter crackled louder as soon as Lea pushed his bike under a loose piece of fence and into the Yellow Zone. It was a copper-colored wasteland. Vegetation was scarce up until the border to the Red Zone where poisonous trees grew in dense packs. The oddest thing to grow in patches were large pink and white flowers. Its layered petals were shaped like blades; they surrounded a thick white bulb. They grew in the blood of those who had fallen victims to the Metal Birds.

"No one survives in the Garden of Eden" said a rugged sign past the Red Zone where the road ended abruptly and became a vast field of waist-high grass. Lea had been tempted to touch it more than once, to wade in and see where it led, but the relentless alarm of the dosimeter allowed for only a quick glance at the greenery before Lea's courage dropped to nothing.

Chain-linked fences had been put up as reinforcement of the border a few years back where the trees left openings. Monsters had a tendency to trickle in where the borders were weak, and should the Metal Birds ever fail to shoot them down, the Village would be made to the first line of defense. Lea rarely ventured that far out anymore. Not since he had seen patches of the chain-linked fence peeled back like a can lid.

Lea shoved the bags of human remains in the orifices of random piles. The City Guard wouldn't venture out here for the King himself let alone for some random doctor interested in the health of the villagers.

The doctor hadn't worn anything of value, Lea realized as he pushed in a stubborn piece of leg. No rings, no necklace or earrings. A wallet would've protruded like morning wood, but there had been none. A doctor was wise, not like counts and lords who had to flaunt their wealth at every opportunity. He must've left everything of value at home. If Roxas and the others were smart enough to bury the body before the cops came, surely they were smart enough to not hang onto anything else of his that was identifiable. Surely.

"Fuck sake," Lea breathed.

The Village was too far away to do anything about it now. Streetwise kids knew to at least wait for the dust to settle before selling anything stolen off a fresh corpse.

Roxas' situation was more urgent. However many strikes one person was entitled to before getting the noose, Roxas was well beyond that. Lea needed bargaining power and he'd already given away his last can of Spam. If he used the faceless doll, they'd just take it and give him a noose, too.

He ran back to his bike and dug out a small turquoise radio from it. It was old and useless where no radio waves from the City could reach them, but Lea had been tampering with it. The radio helped him find valuables.

Lea pulled the antenna as far as it would go and walked with it to spots where the white noise crackled and became faint words, sung in a broken melody. He had followed it before, to the pieces he needed to finish the doll. With luck, the melody would lead him to something valuable, something worth more to the cops than keeping Roxas.

Lea stepped forward slowly with the hope that the song would grow stronger, but the crackle kept disappearing, and turning to white noise. Lea retraced his footsteps until he could hear something again. This went on for hours, a desperate dance around the hundreds of piles full of rusting garbage. He almost stepped into the pathways of the Metal Birds whirring around the area, but the familiar sound of a charging barrel urged him to hide behind a particularly loud pile.

Lea switched off the sound of his dosimeter.

Two piles to the south, where the rustling of the trees was visible past two broken windows in a run-down brick house, the song grew clearer.

"I st… joke…"

Lea climbed up one pile and held the radio up toward the top while he found anchorage on old car parts.

Batteries trickled down the pile like cockroaches whenever Lea moved something. It made Lea's fingers itch. Normally he'd put each battery he found in a series of boxes in case they bust open and began to bleed their poisonous contents into the earth. Considering the wasteland he walked, it was too little too late, but maybe, he thought, if he put some effort into it, there'd come a day when this side of the Wall could match that which was on the other side.

The melody held his attention when it grew clearer. At one point, the crackling disappeared. The distorted voice became human, each word's meaning strengthened by the accompanying instruments Lea imagined coming from a backup choir of other humans whose voices could be distorted to make different sounds, like birds.

Carefully, Lea moved bits and pieces to find whatever made the radio sing. If it slipped and fell through the cracks, he'd be here all night disassembling the work of decades.

A particular sound popped from the radio's speaker when Lea found a dark, small bag of thick and sturdy material, like he'd run a magnet over the song and managed to bend it as he pulled the bag out.

Lea slid down the pile and opened the bag as soon as he touched the ground. Titanium coated key-rex screws, six of them. They were used to keep a Core in place. Each Core had a unique set.

"Jackpot?" he laughed and stepped back, ready to run back to his bike when a blue line lit up on the ground.

Lea took cover. It had been a year since the Metal Birds had been updated. The City might know something the Outside didn't, that a new outbreak was incoming, one that would leave few survivors if it was as instantaneous as Hayner, Pence and Olette had described it. This could be updated weaponry; a certified way of shooting and killing sick villagers. But the light came without any whirring or loading barrels.

The blue line began with the bag in Lea's hand and corrected the path to point south whenever Lea moved. It led to the red brick house far down the narrow point of the Yellow Zone near the chain-linked fence.

The radio was nothing but white noise until Lea moved it across the blue line.

"We interrupt this broadcast for an important message. Paradise Awaits, a new fragrance brought to you by DreamInc, the only right choice for the right one on Valentine's."

The announcement was accompanied by brass and strings and bled into the beginning of the song Lea had used as a compass. He followed the blue line toward the red brick house, knees achingly hollow with the certainty that the last thing he'd see alive would be the beady blood-shot eyes of the monsters pouring in from the other side.

He stopped by the doorway and narrowed his eyes to see into the darkest corners before he stepped in. Everything was where he'd left it. Dust had settled thickly on every surface. His footprints had long since vanished. The scratch marks on the floor were no longer visible. The red metal barrels with the bright yellow trefoil stood lined against the wall, lid firmly in place.

Lea pulled out his dosimeter, mouth dry at the sight of them again. As long as he didn't get an overload, he'd be fine.

The dosimeter screeched as soon as he switched the sound on; it counted, numbers flickering on the screen, quickly, then slowly.

"Let's do this fast," Lea said to the bag. He put the dosimeter into his pocket and moved alongside the walls opposite the barrels to follow the blue line up cracked bricks until it vanished.

The grout was darker around the bricks where the blue line ended. Lea knocked on it, loosening pebbles that fell to the floor. He dug his fingers around the four bricks held together by the darker grout until he could pull them all out. A metal box was tucked into the hole left behind. The box was about the width and length of Lea's hand. It didn't have a lock, only a small latch Lea had to fiddle with to pry open.

"C'mon."

The muffled beeping of the dosimeter made his hands shake.

Lea pulled it open. The hinges didn't make a sound. Inside lay a sight Lea never thought he'd see again, magnificent and regal against a crumbling rag: a Core.

The Core was a glassy gray object in the shape of a human heart, with ventricles, same-colored cables shaped like veins and an aorta for connection. A work of art, of engineering ingenuity that had been lost to the ages.

Lea didn't even touch it. He closed the box and put the bricks back over it and stepped back to make sure it blended into the wall as it had before. Roxas had to be saved before he could acknowledge his finding.

"Yeah," Lea said to himself and nodded. "First things first."

The titanium-coated key-rex screws were enough to cover for bail. They were straight off the special items list. Nobody needed to know about the Core.

Breathless, he stumbled out of the red brick house and dropped to his knees. It could be the radioactivity finally getting to him. He hadn't measured the Core for any radiation or the brick wall. Or this was what happiness was; an onslaught of vertigo, nausea and a primal urge to scream retribution to the high heavens.

Lea wept as he rocked back and forth, thanking a merciless god for allowing him a second chance. A Core was a surefire way to get permanent residency in the City with all the commodities that entailed, or so the story went.

The people in the City had no piles of garbage littering their lands, only food made to order; endless amounts of food that would appease kings and queens alike. Lea saw an ocean of Spam in funny shapes like rats or doves in his immediate future. Fancy Spam cut into circles. Spam with red onion and cheese.

Lea wiped his mouth to keep himself from drooling as he drove his bike through long-abandoned villages down the road to the southern entry point to the City.

White noise crackled as he steered down the narrow and sandy roads that twisted around empty tin shacks with blown-out windows covered with old plastic bags.

Far to his right, past a muddy creek and mounds of gravel and dirt, stood a large wall of red steel pillars, a chain-linked fence between each pillar loaded with enough voltage to light up the surrounding slum for a good year. Only, it was used to keep the outside away. The Wheel, the crown jewel of the City with its electric blue halo and black sun rays, levitated high up in the air. The skyscrapers on the right side of the wall, old and new, stuck out like middle fingers, and Lea returned the gesture before he switched the radio off.


End file.
